Teacher Advisories - A Proposal for Change (Synthesis) (Ch.12)

This chapter focused on a new way of thinking of and using teacher advisories. Rather than meeting during school, or a single lunch a few times a year, this chapter proposes the idea of having full day advisory activities in which the students are stepping outside of the academic realm and working solely on building relationships with adults and peers, as well as personal development. These days could include some type of physical activity or exciting adventure in which the students would have a chance to shine in other aspects of life outside of academics. Opportunities like this can be really rich for those students that are not particularly outstanding within the basic subject areas and have more abilities in areas of physical activity or simply in social interactions. These programs set up the chance for teachers to get to know students and gain a level of comfort in the relationship that could benefit the student in any case of struggle in the future. Advisories also extend a helping hand in getting students to interact with other classmates outside of their normal circle of friends, quite possibly forging some unexpected friendships. This new form of advisories could be extremely beneficial to students while they work on becoming more well-rounded and accepting individuals.


As a class, the general consensus in our blogs was that the advisories (when properly implemented) would be a positive addition to classrooms and schools where the students could truly connect with other students and the teachers. It was mentioned that having the groups rather than a one on one meeting could be effective because of the obvious extra benefits group activities pose. In the middle school, activities outside of school will keeps students engaged and excited when they are used properly. The increase of comfort levels between students and teachers would be such a nice attribute in the classroom, especially at these grade levels, where things can be awkward and uncomfortable for certain students. A general suggestion throughout the blogs was that homeroom periods, or just basic meetings were never very successful in our previous experiences. They serve the purpose of attendance, declaration of grades, and possibly even social time. A better structured program could help these short meetings be more useful. If the students and teachers took time to take trips or outside of the classroom activities, the bonds that are forged could be a useful tool in the shorter meetings that would occur. A couple of students worried about taking away from academics with these programs, so maybe the best suggestion could be an after school program, or a Saturday morning program to get the ball rolling if the concerns about losing out on academic time was a concern. Overall, these teacher advisories could be a new way of reaching out to students and assisting them in all aspects of their development.